


We Set Sail (As The Night Gets Long)

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Birthday Presents, Fluff, Happy Ending, James Really Can't Draw, Lopsided Hearts, Love Confessions, M/M, Surprises, Texting, pining!Michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-07
Updated: 2012-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-18 03:37:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael's birthday, text messages, James failing to artistically draw anything including male anatomy, pining Michael, happy surprises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Set Sail (As The Night Gets Long)

**Author's Note:**

> Just realized I never posted this over here! 'twas written very quickly for Michael's birthday, back in April. Title and opening lines from The Kooks’ “Eskimo Kiss”.

_oh lonely bones_   
_well I’m coming through the sun_   
_and our lives have just begun_

The text message turns up at 12:00am. Of course it does.

_Happy Birthday!_ says the screen, loudly. Followed by a happy face and a heart, or what’s likely meant to be a heart, except James has evidently mistyped something, so the happy face is smiling at a _< 4_ instead.

Michael waits; James must’ve realized, because two seconds later he sees _Oh sorry I mean <3 not that you’ll get this because you’re out having fun_ and two seconds after that _Sorry for interrupting your fun :-(  but happy birthday again if that helps_ and Michael starts laughing, helplessly, standing in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the door that will lead up to his flat.

The night, up to this point, has been bitterly cold, the kind of wind that takes no notice of overcoats and scarves and human fragility. But suddenly the air warms up, around him, anyway.

He sends back _I <4_ _you too and you’re not interrupting anything, just got_ _home_ and then runs inside because his fingers are sending him angry messages about being asked to function in the cold.

_Why are you at home?_ inquires the phone, by the time he gets to the top of the stairs. _You should be celebrating. 35! Some sort of awesome milestone!_

_Thought that was 40?_

_…all of your birthdays are awesome milestones? :D :D_

_Nice save._

_Thank you._ _So why are you at home? Go enjoy yourself!_

_Why are you still texting me? Just call!_

_Fine._ Plus a drawing of something that James no doubt intended to look like a penis, except James once again has failed at text-based artistic endeavors. By the time he’s changed into plaid pajama pants and his oldest and warmest around-the-house shirt, and is stretched out across the blandly uncomfortable bed, which he really needs to get replaced but isn’t here enough to recall that fact in time to do anything to fix it, his phone is ringing, in his hand. He hadn’t wanted to set it down.

He knows it’s pathetic—James is just being a good friend, checking in to wish him a happy birthday, and is now concerned that Michael isn’t spending the night having fun—but he can’t help smiling again anyway.

He gets to hear James’s voice, on the other end, after all.

“Mine is larger than that,” he says, instead of hello, and hears James dissolve into laughter, on the other end. “It’s not like I’d know, you realize! And it’s a new phone! I’m still getting to be friends with it!”

“That’s still not an excuse for your sending me a disproportionate text-message penis on my birthday.” There’re other replies he could have offered, but part of his brain is thinking, wistfully, about how much he’d like James to know those things. No, he tells his brain, and the rest of his recalcitrant anatomy. Just because he’d quite like to tackle James on sight and kiss him senseless, that doesn’t mean that James would appreciate the interest.

James isn’t even gay, as far as Michael knows. Then again, strictly speaking Michael isn’t either, or at least not completely; he has dated his share of women, to go along with the less public encounters involving men. He’s never thought of himself as gay.

He does think of himself as in love with James, but that’s because he is. It’s the hair. And the eyes. And the accent. And the everything else, too.

James remembers everyone’s birthdays, every time. James is a good friend, and a good person. The most genuinely kind person Michael’s ever met. Who also sends him bizarre drawings of masculine anatomy via text.

James is so damn perfect. Even when he’s not, he is.

He also is, at the moment, still laughing, over the phone, the rich texture of that voice all tangled up with amusement. “Admit it, you’ve missed me.”

“If you say so, then I suppose I have to agree.” He rolls over onto his back. The bed refuses to get any more friendly, beneath his weight. “Where’re you?”

“London. Home. Where you also are and shouldn’t be. No plans?”

“I just got off a plane. From California. No plans except sleep. I’m an old person now. As you’ve kindly pointed out. Thirty-five.”

“I’ll still love you even when you’re an old person, you know.”

Michael shuts his eyes, for a second, because James has just said _I love you_ and hasn’t meant it, at least not in the way that Michael wants him to mean it. The way that Michael would mean it, if he ever said those words.

He doesn’t say them back, because that would be ripping the bandages off his bleeding heart, but he does say, “Thanks for that. You know in two years I’m calling you at midnight, just to tell you you’re getting old.”

“You won’t remember,” James says cheerfully, and Michael winces. Yes, he’s usually terrible about those things—he’d forgotten his sister’s birthday once, even, a fact about which he’s frequently reminded—but is that what James thinks? That Michael would ever forget his birthday? That Michael could ever find him forgettable?

James is still talking. “Okay, not tonight, then—and I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you’d just got back, if you want to sleep I can let you go—but what about tomorrow? Though I suppose that’s technically later today. Plans?”

“Not really. Come on, I haven’t even had time to unpack. Much less arrange some sort of last-minute birthday party for myself. And no, stay. I like talking to you.” Oh, god. He should never be allowed to talk again. “Um…you didn’t hear that, right?”

“What, that you don’t have plans? Because I was going to ask, if you weren’t busy, if you wanted me to buy you dinner, or something. You know. For your birthday.”

“Absolutely, if you’re offering. Except for the part about you buying.” Also, thank god; maybe James hasn’t heard his tired slip of confession. And now he has plans. He gets to have dinner with James. Completely the best birthday ever, all at once.

“It’s your birthday, so I’m buying. Or did you mean you didn’t want me to hear that you like talking to me? Because I did. And I do, too.”

“…what?”

“Why do you think I texted you—at exactly midnight—in the first place?”

“Because you’re a perfect person!”

“Okay, I think it’s my turn to say _what?_ in that tone.”

Michael stares at his phone. The screen appears disinclined to help him out with the conversation. “Um…are you still buying me dinner tomorrow? Because we could talk about this then.” Maybe by then James will have forgotten the entire thing. At the very least, the delay can offer some time to come up with distractions.

“Or we could talk about it now.” James sounds surprisingly happy, considering the mess they’ve made of this discussion. “You said you like talking to me. And I like talking to you. And then you called me perfect, which I am not. So…I think the only appropriate thing to say is…when I said I’d love you when you turn into an old person…”

“You’re only two years younger than I am!” Deflect, deflect. Then he won’t have to hear James finish that sentence with _…I didn’t mean it like that_.

“So we can be old people together, you’re saying? Because I’d, um, kind of like that. Getting old with you. I mean, not that I’m looking forward to getting old, but the being with you part. Because when I said I love you I meant it. Does that help?”

“Oh, my god,” Michael says, to the phone. James starts laughing again, though there’s a slightly worried edge to the amusement.

“I always have, pretty much since I met you. I just never thought you’d be interested, I mean, you—well, you _are_ perfect. And you make me want to smile, every time you smile at me, or when you smile about anything, honestly. And now would be an excellent time for you to say something, too, because I’m starting to be nervous about this, so even if you don’t love me back could you at least talk—”

“I love you!”

“You _do_?”

“James,” Michael tells him, and he’s laughing, too, at the astonishment in that voice, at how ridiculous they’ve both been, how much time they’ve wasted, how perfect James and the phone and the uncomfortable bed and the entire world are, right now, at this moment, “I love you so fucking much. Since—I don’t even know. Years. And I want to be old people with you, too. Everything you want. Anything you want. Always.”

“Well,” James says, and he’s grinning, Michael _knows_ he’s grinning, can hear it over the phone, “then…I know we said dinner tomorrow, but…what if everything I want involves kissing you right now?”

“Then come over now. Please. Or…I can come over there. Whatever you want. I just said that, right?” He’s grinning, too. Not even embarrassed. No room for that now.

“Yes, you did, and I do like the way that sounds. I’ll come over, though. You did just get off a plane. And you’re probably wearing your fuzzy pajama pants and sitting in that horrible blue chair—you need new furniture, you know, that chair has to be nearly as old as you are—and being all warm and happy. So don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“First, I’ve had that chair since moving here. I’m very attached to that chair. Second, I’m actually in bed.”

“Oh, my god,” James says, “ten minutes, and now you _really_ aren’t allowed to go anywhere,” and in fact it’s twelve minutes but Michael forgives him when he turns up at the door with hair rumpled from the wind and sparkling blue eyes and offers, “Sorry, twelve, not ten, I know, but I forgot to buy you a birthday card” and holds up a piece of paper, obviously torn from the back of one of his scripts, that says _HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND I LOVE YOU!_ in James’s messy handwriting. Plus a quickly-sketched heart. Which is lopsided, because even in non-text-message form James still can’t draw.

“I love you too,” Michael says, and he can’t wait any longer for this, too long already, so he just puts both arms around James and kisses him, right there in the doorway, discovering cold night air and chapstick and the taste of those delighted lips against his own. “And yes. It is.”


End file.
